National Animal Health Laboratory Network

In 2001, the National Research Council formed a committee to study the susceptibility of United States agriculture to bioterrorism. At the time, terrorist attacks on United States soil were believed to be unlikely. However, the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001 raised the specter of attacks against other targets including essential industries.

There was an increasing awareness of the vulnerability of agriculture and the food system to terrorist interference. The NRC study found that the United States was not equipped to respond to biological threats to animal and public health and the national economy. One of the major roadblocks to agrosecurity was the lack of a network of animal disease diagnostic laboratories capable of diagnosing diseases exotic to the United States. Before 2002, if an animal was suspected of having a foreign animal disease, such as foot and mouth disease, diagnostic specimens could only be sent to the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL) on Plum Island for testing and confirmation. Unfortunately, transit times for specimens sent to Plum Island could be lengthy and this delay in turnaround could mean the difference between a successfully quarantined herd and a spreading threat to the food supply and animal and public health.

As a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act became law in 2002. This act enabled the Secretary of Agriculture to develop programs that would enhance tracking of animal diseases and allow better communication between federal and state laboratories. In order to reach this goal, supplemental Homeland Security Funding was used by the Veterinary Services division of APHIS to develop the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) in 2002.

The NAHLN pilot program restructured the manner in which foreign and emerging animal diseases were monitored and confirmed. Originally, the NAHLN program offered funding for training and improved facilities to twelve laboratories across the country to assist in the detection of certain diseases. However, the National Veterinary Service Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, including the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory on Plum Island, remains the main reference laboratory in the United States for the detection of animal diseases.

Currently, several laboratories across the United States are available to assist the NVSL in the development of assays for disease detection and surveillance of certain foreign animal diseases that are considered an agrosecurity risk. The NAHLN has developed rapid assays for avian influenza and exotic newcastle disease. Additional rapid assays are being developed for African swine fever, classical swine fever, rinderpest, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, lumpy skin disease, vesicular stomatitis, rift valley fever and foot and mouth disease. In 2003, APHIS added certain domestic diseases of agricultural importance to the NAHLN surveillance list including scrapie and chronic wasting disease. The NAHLN also works to ensure that animals for export have been properly tested and are free from diseases reportable to the World Organization of Animal Health (OIE).

National Research Council. Countering Agricultural Bioterrorism. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2003.

National Research Council. Animal Health at the Crossroads: Preventing, Detecting and Diagnosing Animal Diseases. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2005.

NAHLN Directory by State

Below is a list of the NAHLN laboratories approved by APHIS Veterinary Services. The diseases each laboratory is authorized to test for are included in parantheses after the directory listing. These diseases include avian influenza (AI), exotic Newcastle disease (END), bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), classical swine fever (CSF), foot and mouth disease (FMD), chronic wasting disease (CWD) and scrapie.

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